Mexico City's Santa Fe neighbourhood a hot spot for cartels

Mexico Drug War:
Cartels make Santa Fe, in Mexico City, one of their hubs

Members of drug groups such as those of Beltrán Leyva, Edgar
Valdez Villarreal, (la Barbie) and La Familia have used the commercial zone of
Santa Fe, located in western Mexico City, as a meeting place, to shop or for
lodgings. (Where a car was burned and two bodies and two heads were abandoned
yesterday in front of a major, hi-end mall.) Several arrests have been made by federal
authorities in restaurants, hotels and shops that are located in the place
where, a few decades ago, there were garbage dumps and sand and gravel pits.

In October 2008, the Colombian drug kingpin, Teodoro
Mauricio Restrepo, who served as liaison to the Beltran Leyva organization,
used the mall parking garage to transport business partners and service
providers from there to his mansion in Desierto de Los Leones, where he held
his parties and had exotic animals to be maintained.

In February 2009, at the mall where the incident occurred
yesterday, Gerardo Gonzalez Benavides, known as "Tony the Lie," who
is Edgar Valdez Villarreal's ('la Barbie') cousin, was arrested. He allegedly
controlled drug sales in Tultitlan and Cuautitlan, in the state of Mexico.

Similarly, on April 14, 2010 Hilario López Morales, 'the
Cat', was captured in one of the restaurants in Santa Fe. He was identified by
federal authorities as being in charge of La Familia cartel operations in
Zitacuaro, Michoacan.

The violence is coming close to where the rich play

Also in November 2010 in the Central District hotel, federal
authorities arrested five members of what is known as the Independent Acapulco
Cartel, an organization that la Barbie created after the death of Arturo
Beltran Leyva in December 2009. Among those arrested was Carlos Montemayor
Gonzalez, father of Edgar Valdez Villarreal."

Mexico Secretary of
Public Safety presents achievements of Federal Police to U.S. officials during
Washington visit

During his working tour of the United States, Mexico's
Public Safety Secretary, Genaro Garcia Luna, pointed out to high ranking
officials of the administration of Barack Obama the professionalism and
international standards of research and intelligence achieved by the Federal
Police under the administration of President Felipe Calderon.

He met in Washington with the United States attorney
general, Eric Holder, the drug czar, Gil Kerlikowske, the director of the DEA,
Michele Leonhart, and FBI chief Robert Mueller, who also addressed issues such
as trafficking drugs, border security and money laundering.

Garcia Luna said that at the beginning of this
administration, in Mexico there were no police institutions with the capacity
to deal with a complex phenomenon such as organized crime, which is now
transnational. This required the design
and implementation of a strategy to transform police departments that began
with the building an authentic Federal
Police. He gave an accounting of the achievements of the Federal Police against
the drug cartels, with it results in seizures of drugs, weapons and the capture
of kidnappers.

U.S. authorities stated that they recognized the progress of
the Mexican government in fighting crime. They pledged to redouble efforts to
improve bilateral cooperation to achieve a more effective fight against
transnational organized crime, as it is a complex phenomenon not unique to
Mexico.

U.S. Ambassador
announces program to support protection of journalists, saying U.S. shares
responsibility for combating drug violence

Of course, the ambassador says nothing about U.S. responsibility
in creating the drug violence. The U.S. government's theme of "shared
responsibility" with Mexico for solving the violence seems to imply that
the responsibility is equal. It is hardly equal. Mexico's major challenge is
establishing the rule of law--a functioning police and justice system. But it
is the U.S.'s prohibition of regulated, legal drug sale and consumption that
starts the violence ball rolling by fueling the cartels and their competition.
About that, Mexico can do nothing.

The U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Anthony Wayne, said that he
is working with the government of Felipe Calderón and civil society groups to
protect journalists and human rights defenders. In support of this effort, he
will sign an agreement with Freedom House and allocate 5 million dollars over
four years. ... He stressed that the
goal will be to improve the skills of civil society to monitor the government's
efforts in its task of providing emergency tools and support to protect
journalists at risk.

On the other hand, he stressed that neither country alone
can solve the drug problem. "We must work together. We share
responsibility to combat drug-related violence," he said. ..."As
Americans we must be honest about that responsibility and the ways in which our
consumption of drugs and the illicit flow of weapons and money into Mexico
contribute to the enormous challenge we both face," he added.

He added that last month the promise of President Barack
Obama to deliver to Mexico $500 million in equipment and training was fulfilled
in accord with the Merida Initiative, for a total of nearly 900 million
overall. He expressed confidence that the commitment to deliver one billion,
400 million dollars would be met or exceeded.

Immigration
Economics: Remittances to Mexico are rebounding

Ending a
three-year slump, remittances to Mexico are finally on the upswing, thanks to
an improving U.S. job market.

Analysts expect that money sent home last year by Mexicans
living abroad, most of them residing in the United States, will top $23 billion
when Mexico's central bank releases annual figures this month. Although still
below the peak of $26 billion in 2007, that would be a solid 8 percent increase
over 2010.

Drug War Central
America: New Guatemala president wants to regain US military aid

Former general Otto Perez Molina takes office as
Guatemala's new president Saturday with a top priority of ending a
long-standing U.S. ban on military aid imposed over concerns about abuses
during the Central American country's 36-year civil war. Perez, who was a top
military official during the war, has long insisted there were no massacres,
human rights violations or genocide in a conflict that killed 200,000
civilians, mostly Mayan Indians.

But he won the presidency campaigning on a pledge to crack
down on soaring crime, including one of the highest murder rates in the Western
Hemisphere, and he will need U.S. help to battle the Mexican drug gangs that
have overrun Guatemala. Close advisers say he supports meeting the conditions
set by various U.S. congressional appropriations acts for restoring aid that
was first eliminated in 1978 halfway through the civil war.

Drug War Bloodshed:
Mexico Updates Drug War Death Toll, but Critics Dispute Data

The Mexican government updated its drug war death toll
on Wednesday, reporting that 47,515 people had been killed in drug-related
violence since President Felipe Calderón began a military assault on criminal
cartels in late 2006.

Wednesday’s limited data release (will not) silence the
increasingly loud call for better, more transparent government record keeping.
The Mexican government has failed to create the tracking system it needs to
understand criminal trends and improve security, experts say, even as it has
become more secretive with the limited information it has.

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Podcast: Notes From The Underground

In the podcast Notes From The Underground TE Wilson discusses historical and contemporary attitudes toward crime. Each episode features a one-on-one interview that explores a unique topic. Interviewees include authors, experts, and individuals with personal experiences of crime. These podcasts were originally broadcast through the facilities of Trent Radio in Peterborough, Canada.

Mezcalero, a Detective Sánchez novel

Bicultural and transgender, detective Ernesto Sánchez seeks a missing Canadian woman on Mexico’s Pacific coast. Moving uneasily in a world where benign tourism co-exists with extreme violence, he becomes a pawn in a shadowy power-play between corrupt police and drug cartels. Forced to make hard choices – desperate, wounded, and friendless – Sánchez takes refuge in the lawless mountains of Oaxaca. And discovers his fate.

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